Tomorrow, Like Yesterday
by FyrMaidn
Summary: It’s only because Dean is dying that he tells Sam, because someone needs to know. Someone will need to tell his daughter when he dies. Standalone


**Fandom: **Supernatural  
**Pairing: **Gen – Dean, Sam, established.  
**Genre:** Angst. You know, for a change.  
**Spoilers: **Er. Season 1 in general? Nothing specific. Oh – maybe for Skin but that doesn't count.  
**Warnings:** It's more of a requirement – suspension of disbelief will get you a long way.

**Title: **Tomorrow, Like Yesterday  
**Author: **FyrMaiden  
**Rating: **PG-13/12A. Pick a side of the pond.  
**Summary: **It's only because Dean is dying that he tells Sam, because someone needs to know. Someone will need to tell his daughter when he dies.  
**Words: **2,016

**Disclaimer:** Fan authored for fun not profit. _Supernatural_, its characters and content, are license of Eric Kripke and the CW.  
**Author's Note: **So I had these two ideas. One revolved around 1x06 (Skin) and what Dean would have written on his headstone, which sort of morphed into what you see before you. The other (and I'm working on it) is another piece about the car, but starts with the notion that Dean sees things that never were. I prefer the other idea, but this one was easier. Easier wins every time, yo. Onwards!

Dean wonders randomly what they'll write on his headstone, if he'll even get one, should there be anything left to bury or if there is anyone left to care. His own name is in use already, stuck on a grave in Missouri where a shape shifter stole his identity to play head games with some girl. He pauses, tries to think. He's got a daughter in Colorado that he's seen just once. She was tiny and fragile and breathtakingly beautiful. He wonders what her mother tells her about him now, imagines what she's like and he tries not to get himself killed because he promised her he'd protect her when she was too young to understand. He'd wanted to stay and had left anyway because there's still work to do and he is a soldier. But she makes him feel alive when so little else does. He's never told Sam, but their mom knows about her. Dean wonders what they'll write on his headstone and who will tell his daughter.

Dean is 31 and it's been a good five years since he last told Sam to look after the car. Sam fixes him with one of his looks, the one that says to stop being stupid because death is something that happens to other people, and Dean comes over all serious, the same as he did back when. He tells Sam about his little girl. He says he wants Sam to find her because she's got to know – she's got to know that he died protecting her innocence like he could never do for Sam. Sam forces a smile and grips Dean's hand tighter. He'd love to tell Dean that he was plenty protected, that all his gripes are in the past, but he doesn't. He blinks back the pain and promises he'll find her. He doesn't question her existence but vows, for Dean and Jess and their mom, that he will do everything he can to protect her.

Dean spends almost a month being ferried between the apartment they're renting and the hospital. He tells Sam at various times and in varying ways to just go, to just leave him be, let him die. Sam ignores him and writes to an address in Kansas. His abilities have increased to a point where he makes Missouri look like a fraud but he can't see inside Dean's head. It used to be a matter of principle and then there was Salvation. Ever since Salvation, Dean's mind has been a closed book. But the girl – Dean's daughter – is almost eight, and Sam has to wonder how he kept that so damn quiet. He needs help so he writes to Missouri, hoping she'll show him the way.

Sam has a million questions once they're back out on the road but he doesn't ask any of them. He waits for Dean to speak, confident in his knowledge that it won't take long. And he's right. Dean tells him everything, about the mother who sounds completely out of type for him, and how he actually almost considered stopping but couldn't in the long run. He's not sure it was love, not like Cassie, but it was close and warm and sort of almost beautiful. Sam doesn't have to ask why Dean moved on, although he does have to wonder what made him stop for almost a year. He can only guess – something about him being gone, perhaps. Without Sam there was nothing to fight for and no point continuing. And the reasons to start again – his daughter, so small that she reminded him of another baby that he'd sworn to keep safe. Sam knows why Dean doesn't settle. He's not cut out for the sedate pedantry of urban normality. Dean is a killer, not a father. Even their own dad couldn't manage both.

Missouri responds to a post office box and Sam picks the letter up almost a week after it arrives. The news is good and he insists that they swing past Lawrence since they're practically in Kansas anyway. Dean gives him a look, the one that threatens violence if his time is being wasted, and points the Impala in the direction of home. Or the home that isn't quite, at least. Missouri takes one look at the two of them standing at her front door and her eyes fill with tears. It's been a while, almost entirely too long, and her heart breaks a little at the burden they are forced to bear. They are yin and yang, these two, but they are without doubt stronger together. Missouri pulls Dean towards her, stares into his troubled eyes, and then she lays her palms against his cheeks. She tells him that he is beautiful and that he shouldn't worry, his journey hasn't ended yet. Dean's smile has teeth in it, but it still completely misses his eyes. Missouri's entire presence is sad when she turns to Sam.

Dean doesn't speak for days out of Lawrence. It's something Sam assumed he'd grown out of, but apparently not. When Dean's emotions go into turmoil, he retreats into a world of absolute silence. It's impenetrable. It always has been. Dean spends his days of silence thinking. He thinks about the past and the future and ignores the present. He thinks about Cassie (because he hasn't for a long time); she makes him feel both dead and alive, so he stops again. He thinks about Sam, about everything he promised Sam and failed dismally to provide. He promised safety and security and he couldn't follow through on either. And he promised his little girl that when she was just two months old, and that's why he left. Because there was still the good fight, still things to fight for, and because he had things to prove to himself. It takes Dean five days to come to terms with what Missouri told Sam, and when he finally breaks his silence it is only to whisper his millionth apology. He says he is sorry for all the myriad things he promised that he just couldn't deliver.

Missouri's contact with the Winchester's seems to be a series of fading taillights, but this time she at least feels useful. She wonders, as Sam has before her, how Dean managed to keep something so important so secret, but the wondering is futile. He's been laid bare and she knows as well as Sam how he will react to them trying to help him. Dean doesn't need help. He needs someone to mend the tears in his soul. She tells Sam what she gleaned from Dean; the girl is real, not some kind of fever dream or latent want, and his daughter is in Colorado. Missouri smiles because of the pictures in Dean's head, but she agrees with Sam. It's probably for the best, in the long run, that Dean left, because he's dangerous and he's volatile, and evil isn't finished with him yet.

Sam says there's this little town just over the Louisiana state border and he really needs to visit it. Dean's suspicious when Sam won't tell him what the town is called, but he gave the car keys to Sam a hundred miles back and so he really doesn't have much say in anything. He thinks he regrets telling Sam anything about Colorado but he's not sure. It seems to give Sam a sense of purpose and that's got to be a good thing. Sam's been a little listless for a little too long, like the voices in his head won't leave him alone. Dean thought his baby brother had learned to control that, and he's right, except for when Sam is worried or distressed. And he's always worried and distressed these days. Worried that Dean might drop down dead, worried he won't find Dean's daughter before that happens. Dean's told Sam a million times that he's fine and he's not dying, and it's true, but Sam worries anyway, because it's what brother's do.

Sam's got the name of a woman in Montana that he got from a guy that Missouri knows, the guy in Louisiana. He says this woman can help. Dean says drop it, forget it, it's not important, and Sam ignores him because this time, Sam knows best. Dean says, have you actually tried the town in Colorado and Sam gives him one of those looks again, the one that says he's not a complete idiot and of course he's tried it, hello come on wake up. Dean nods, says she's something of a gypsy. She was just passing through but he wondered whether she might have stuck it out, just in case. She's probably in Hawaii by now. Or Alaska, or she could have gone to Canada, or Mexico. Sam rolls his eyes and promises Dean for the hundred millionth time that he will find her and stop going on about it, because they've got a job to do on the way up to Montana and it needs them to focus. Dean changes up a gear and puts his foot on the accelerator. He'll take a demon over the uncertainty any day.

There's a demon in Georgia, a poltergeist in South Dakota and a haunting in Kentucky. They see off two werewolves in a small town in Arkansas and then head back north towards Pennsylvania. There's a curse en route that they almost beat, although Dean spends a week unable to speak which means that Sam ends up having to make their money and his poker face has never been great. They head straight through Pennsylvania and on north to New York before turning west again. There's an exorcism in Ohio but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing they haven't done before. Nothing that they can't handle. As they travel, Missouri helps Sam help Dean. They build a network of people to keep Sam informed. They're in Arizona when Missouri calls, when she says she's got something. Sam's got the keys again. He says they're going to Kansas. Dean's too tired to argue.

Sam finds Dean's daughter for him. She's almost ten and it's taken him nearly two years. Dean's says there's a devastating kind of irony in her location when they catch her up. She's in Lawrence. Dean says he's not going to Lawrence and Sam gives him another one his looks, the one that tells Dean to shut up and drive. Dean stops the car at Missouri's house and Sam glances at him out the corner of his eye. Missouri is standing on her stoop when they get out of the car. She smiles and welcomes Dean with a hug. Over the past two years, Sam's network has informed him of every sighting of the woman that Dean will only name in the privacy of his own head, and Missouri has been its beating heart. Dean hugs her back and doesn't even have to ask the question because she already knows it's coming. No need to be psychic to know that. She points in the direction of town. He swallows, plays with his keys and tells Sam that he needs to do this alone. He knows this job will get him killed eventually, just like Dad, but he's got to do this alone anyway. Sam can tell her and her mom when he dies but for now –

She's in her front yard and she's the prettiest thing Dean has ever seen. Her hair is brushed gold and Dean can't see but her eyes are green. Her mom sees the Impala and knows it must be him, but she does nothing. They've been this close before in the last two years, and even if he knows now, she knows Dean won't stop for long. The car draws up across the street and she goes to the screen, just in case. It would be good to see him just once more, but she's right. He doesn't even get out of the car. She knows why. She's never once doubted the why. Dean is a lot of thing but father isn't one of them.

**FIN**


End file.
